(Guest blogger Emily Warn is co-owner of Two Pens, which teaches people to write social media content from both sides of the brain.)

My handwriting is as legible as a doctor’s. This holiday season that could have become a problem. Over the summer, my Italian plum trees pumped out fruit like a post-recession factory, producing enough for three different kinds of chutney, and yes, Slivovitz (plum brandy). I didn’t want someone slathering garlic-ginger chutney on an English muffin so I decided to create READABLE holiday labels with the help of Word templates.

Where to get FREE jar label templates

There are loads of free templates for labels for jam jars. I recommend starting with them. You’ll find a list of places to get them at the end of the post, including those on office.com Later on, if you want to learn how to create your own from scratch in Word, read this tutorial on the Local Kitchen blog.

For my plum-erific project I chose to use Avery labels by heading to Avery Design Print Online where you can get lots of free templates (of course you have to buy the labels!).

Picking the perfect label

Almost all free template sites ask for your email address, but usually not any additional personal info. After you do that on Avery Design Print Online, you’ll need to either enter a product number or choose a type of template, say a mailing label or jar label, and you’ll see templates to choose from:

Fiddle until the label says you

I wanted text to replace my scrawl so I chose the label that had a Mistletoe with a place to add the name of my chutneys. But when I entered the text, it didn’t look right-my words kissed (!) the mistletoe.

I clicked Next to get to the editing tools, which made it easy for me to move the text down and change its color.

Print!

Satisfied my fiddling had created labels that my friends and family wouldn’t have to squint to read, I clicked Save in order to download it to my computer. I now had a Word document of 18 identical labels, which are sized and spaced to match a particular sheet of labels from Avery-which of course I already had. I stacked a bunch of label sheets in my printer, and clicked Print in Word.

Now the fun part-a jam-jar labeling party listening to holiday music and sipping Slivovitz.